This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In 3GPP LTE the eNB allocates physical layer resources for uplink (UL, to the eNB) and downlink (DL, from the eNB) shared channels. The physical layer resources include physical resource blocks (PRB) and a modulation coding scheme (MCS). The MCS determines the bit rate, and thus the capacity, of the PRBs. Allocations may be valid for one or more transmission time intervals (TTIs).
Coordinated MultiPoint (CoMP) transmission and reception is being investigated for 3GPP LTE-A to enhance cell-edge data rates in order to create a more uniform data rate experience for the end-user over the entire cell area. CoMP techniques involve increased collaboration between different network nodes (eNBs or more generically ‘transmission points’) in downlink (DL) transmission to the UE and in uplink (UL) reception from the UE.